That tiny flicker of hope

I sat turned away from the main entrance to the restaurant. At some point during the delicious lunch, which was already beginning to have the much needed impact on the mood, my friend stopped talking midway and pointed towards the door. I turned to look around. I saw an old man, bundled up in warm clothes, a walking stick in hand slowly wobble into the restaurant. Right behind him entered a man, somewhere in his mid thirties, gently guiding an old lady in behind him. The old couple wobbled in.

It didn’t take us too long to take in the pleasantness of that situation. It was the parents’ day out.

Every few minutes, I was distracted by the table that the family occupied. Though I was unable to have a good view of all three members, what I kept seeing warmed my heart nonetheless.

There was nothing extraordinary about this. It would be unfair to use fancy words and make it sound like an out-of-the-world experience. But it was beautiful nonetheless.

The son taking the effort to rush to serve food while the mother is still trying to make a move towards the platter. The mother secretly passing half of her roti onto the son’s plate while the father tries to hide his smile and the son pretends to act unawares. There was a lot of warmth, love and care that seemed to ooze out of all that I was a witness to.

It was a beautiful afternoon. At the cost of understating the importance of good food in one’s happiness, I would say that palpable love is what made it a beautiful time.

It is so essential every now and then to slow down, move away from your own self and look around you. Life has an abundance of those tiny pleasures that make it all worthwhile for most of us. But the effort to look around and find that beauty has to be our’s. There is enough ugliness around as well. Try as I might, I won’t be able to will away any of it. But these instances in between, fill me with the much needed love and give the impetus to keep moving on. Moving on with an undiminished hope of everything and everyone falling into place at some point or the other. That tiny flicker of hope that wobbled in today afternoon is all one needs on some days.